5/14/2009 @ 6:20PM

How To Get Off The B-School Wait List

The waiting list to get into your first-choice business school is not a pleasant place to be. You’ve gotten not quite a ‘yes’ and not quite a ‘no.’ You have deadlines to meet for responding to the other schools that did accept you. Should you send in that deposit to your second or third choice, or remain on your top school’s list?

Before you panic, there are some things you can do to strengthen your chance of getting in.

Every school has a different policy about whether you should be in touch with them. Some say outright don’t call us, we’ll call you. If yours is one of them, follow those instructions. Disobeying will most likely do more harm than good.

Some permit contact but in very specific ways. Columbia Business School changed its policy this year. “We no longer encourage people to set up an appointment with their wait list manager or reach out voluntarily to us,” says Linda B. Meehan, assistant dean and executive director of M.B.A. admissions there. “We’ve decided it makes better use of our resources if we reach out when we have questions, rather than having candidates flood us with information we may or may not be looking for.”

Still, Meehan says, if you get an e-mail from Columbia asking if you’d like to remain on the wait list, “That’s the time to tell us about something to enhance your application.”

The Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, prefers to hear from wait-listed students by e-mail only; the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and the Tuck School of Business Administration at Dartmouth College are both more open.

There are several reasons candidates get relegated to the wait list. If you can find out which reason applies to you, you can try to address the problem. Among the most common: a low score on the Graduate Management Admission Test; insufficient community service or leadership experience; low grades in college math classes; unclear career goals. However, “They won’t wait list anybody unless they’re willing to admit them,” says Scott Shrum, director of M.B.A. admissions research at Veritas Prep, an M.B.A. application consulting firm in Los Angeles.

Shrumsuggests that you show your application to someone who knows about the process and together figure out what your weaknesses are. At some schools, including Northwestern, they say it’s acceptable to reach out to the admissions office and ask if there’s anything about your candidacy they found wanting.

Beth Flye, assistant dean and director of admissions and financial aid at Northwestern’s Kellogg School, recently spoke to someone she considered a strong applicant but who had taken the GMAT only once and gotten a relatively low score. Flye encouraged the candidate to take it again, since applicants can do so every 30 days, and scores tend to go up.

If you got low math grades in college, take a calculus class locally and earn an A, admissions officers say. And let the school know. If there’s not enough time to finish such a course, at least begin it and tell your intended school you’re taking the class and are off to a strong start.

Your stated career goal could also be the issue. Linda Meehan gives the example of applicants who have seemed to insist on getting into private equity after school. “The marketplace has changed. We want to know a little more because that may not be an option when they finish,” she says.

As for enthusiasm, that will only get you so far.

“Some people believe that convincing us they’re really, really interested will get them off the wait list. That’s just not true,” says Peter Johnson, executive director of admissions for the full-time M.B.A. program at the Haas School. “What gets them off the wait list is strengthening one of these weaknesses.”

But it’s a balance. Flye says it doesn’t hurt to let the admissions staff know Kellogg is your first choice. Scott Shrum suggests that when you’re asked whether you’d like to remain on the list you send an e-mail saying something like: “Your school is my No. 1 choice, and I can say without hesitation that if accepted I’d send in my deposit today.”

Of course, you only want to say that if it’s true.

What does not work–and will land you on the rejected list–is pestering the admissions office.

“There have been people on the wait list in past years whose interest level was inappropriate,” says Meehan. “Finding anyone under any rock who is associated with Columbia and having them send us e-mails is not helpful. If every time I turn around someone’s name is coming across my screen or a wait list manager’s screen, that’s not in their best interest.”

When you do get in touch, explain why that particular school is the right fit. Personalize your letter by describing the experience you had while visiting the school. Shrum suggests saying something like, “In the fall I had the chance to visit Wharton and sit in on Professor Siegel’s finance class. After listening to the depth of discussion, I knew this was where I wanted to be.”

There are no figures for how many applicants successfully get off waiting lists. It varies since it depends on the strength of the application pool and whether the fully accepted students decide to attend or go elsewhere.

Late last year, when layoffs were at their highest, the thought was M.B.A. applications this year would skyrocket. Applications were indeed up at the beginning of many schools’ application seasons, but they’ve since evened out. That could be good news for wait-listed students.

“One of the big determinants in getting off the wait list has nothing to do with you,” says Peter Johnson. “We can’t predict what all the admitted students will do. Our goal is to minimize the stress as much as we can. We try to communicate frequently–and not give anyone unrealistic hopes.”